V Sunday of Easter

REMAIN IN ME

Acts 9:26-31; 1 John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8

Readings for the V Sunday of Easter

A few days ago, our gardener was trimming the plants. There was something noticeable about the trimmed parts on the ground. Within minutes these started wilting and soon died. 

Now one might say: “Duh! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that! Obviously, a branch/twig cannot live apart from the plant.” 

True! But seeing the wilted and dying twigs drilled home this truth.

Jesus uses this fact of nature as a metaphor for Christianity. In his farewell discourse in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples: “I am the vine, you are the branches... without me you can do nothing.” The disciples knew about the importance of the vine: it was a cash crop. But beyond economy, the vine was a symbol of the nation; often in the Old Testament, Israel is pictured as a vine or vineyard of God. Jesus indicates that he is the new Israel; it is vital for his disciples to remain connected to him for them to have life and to bear fruit.

How does one remain connected to Jesus? 

In three ways: by gathering in his name; by listening to his word; by sharing his body and blood. That’s what we do every time we celebrate the Eucharist! The principal way of remaining in Jesus is through the Eucharist. Another way is through prayer – not a recitation of formula, not a listing of needs and wants – but an intimate relationship with God.

How do we know we remain in Jesus and he in us? 

“Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them” (second reading). His commandment is that we love one another… the way Barnabas loved the recently converted Paul (first reading). We know we remain in Jesus when we bear the fruit of love.

Remaining in Jesus also necessitates pruning! The Father prunes the vine so that it grows to its potential. He prunes everything that resists life/ drains our energy and prevents us from becoming who we are called to be.

The liturgy calls us to remain connected with Jesus the vine and to allow the Father the vine-grower to prune us that we may bear fruit. 

How will I remain in Jesus? What areas of my life are draining my energy and preventing me from being the real me?

IV Sunday of Easter

FROM OBLIGATION TO LOVING COMMITMENT

Acts 4:8-12; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

Readings for the IV Sunday of Easter

A missionary society wrote to David Livingstone and asked: “Have you found a good road to where you are? If so, we want to know how to send some men to join you.” Livingstone replied: “If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”

There is a big difference between those who seek the easy path and those who act out of love and commitment. That is the point Jesus makes in the gospel. He contrasts the attitudes of a good shepherd and a false one:

A real shepherd is born to his task; it is a vocation. He loves his sheep and they love him; he knows them and calls them by name; he thinks of them before he thinks of himself; he does not abandon them even, and perhaps especially, in the face of danger.

For hired hands, to whom Jesus likens the Pharisees, it is a “job”; they are in it solely for the pay; they care nothing for the sheep and so they run away in the face of danger. 

The bottom-line: One who works out of loving commitment thinks of the people one is serving. One who works out of a sense of obligation thinks chiefly about oneself and recompense.

Jesus was the good shepherd – when he had compassion on the crowds and satiated their hunger; when he reached out to the sick and the sinner, to the Samaritan woman, to the Canaanite woman, to the woman caught in adultery, to Zacchaeus, to Martha and Mary. As he moves towards the cross, Jesus holds up this model of the good shepherd.

Jesus, the good shepherd, invites us to be good shepherds. He challenges us to move from obligation to loving commitment, to be a faithful presence to people in need.

Who, in my life, needs “good shepherding”? How will I “be with” those in need?

May we be shepherds to one another, especially to those in need. May we move from obligation to loving commitment.

III Sunday of Easter

REPENT AND START AGAIN

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48

Readings for the III Sunday of Easter

 

Frederick Charrington, the Charrington Brewery owner, was walking down a street. Suddenly the door of a pub flew open. A man staggered out with a woman clinging to him and pleading: “The children haven’t eaten in two days! I’ve not eaten in a week! Please come home! Or… just give me a few coins so I can buy…” Her pleas were cut off as the man struck her. 

As Charrington leaped forward to help her, he noticed a lighted sign on the pub: “Drink Charrington Ale.” He was stunned. He later wrote: “Here was the source of my wealth, and it was producing untold misery before my eyes. I pledged that not another penny of that money should come to me.”

Charrington spent the rest of his life striving to free people from alcoholism. He had the courage to repent and start again. 

This is thrust of today’s readings!

In the first reading, Peter moves from castigating the Jews for putting to death “the author of life” to calling them to conversion: “Repent, therefore, and be converted.” 

Peter uses a Jewish historical form: reviewing the past and moving through the present to the future. The aim is not to condemn but to draw his listeners to action, to a change of mind and heart.

Here, the medium is the message! Peter says: “You denied the Holy and Righteous One.” Peter, too, denied Jesus. But he repented and began again. It is never too late, no sin is too grave, for one to repent. Peter knows– as John writes in the second reading – that we have an advocate with the Father: Jesus, who is the expiation for our sins.

Repentance is Jesus’ message to his disciples. After giving them his peace, he commissions them to preach “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” He calls them to proclaim his death and resurrection but also that through his death and resurrection, God has forgiven, accepts, and loves all people everywhere.

As human beings, we sin, we produce misery for others, we put people to “death”. The Lord calls us to have the courage to repent and to begin again. He is ready to forgive us; and it is then we will experience his peace. Let me start again…

II Sunday of Easter

WHAT GOOD DID IT DO?

Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31

Readings for the II Sunday of Easter

One Sunday, a butcher decided to hear a noted preacher. When he returned, his wife questioned him about the service: “What hymns did they sing?” The butcher couldn’t remember. “What was his text?” He couldn’t remember! Exasperated, his wife asked: “What good did it do for you to go to church?”

The butcher was quiet for a moment. Then he said: “What good? I will tell you what good it did. You know the scales in the shop that weigh 900 grams to the kilo? Before we open for business tomorrow, I am going to correct those scales to weigh the correct 1000 grams to the kilo.”

Going to church did the butcher good. It transformed him. So it was with the disciples who encountered the risen Lord!

The gospel portrays Thomas’ radical transformation from one who doubted Jesus’ resurrection to the first one who courageously acknowledged Jesus as God!

The first reading describes the early Christian community. The disciples were transformed from people fearfully behind shut doors to people who testified to the resurrection with power; from people who fought for position and greatness to people who were of one heart and one soul… that’s the good that came from their encounter with the risen Lord (and the outpouring of the holy spirit).

It doesn’t matter if we cannot remember the hymns sung at the Eucharist or the readings (and the homily!). If our lives are radically transformed by our encounter with Jesus, that’s a load of “good”. 

May our encounter with the risen Lord transform you and me.